Monday, July 20, 2009

One Small Step ...

Forty years ago today, man set foot on the moon for the first time. Nineteen years ago, Reginald Hill published the novella One Small Step, in which Dalziel and Pascoe blast off into space to solve a murder on the moon. (It's a terrific story.)

79 Comments:

Giulio Leoni's La donna sulla luna deals with a murder during the filming of Fritz Lang's film of the same name in the twilight of the Weimar Republic. Most characters, including the detective, are historical figures.

I loved the moon in the gutter!In the Italian translation though the title loses the moon reference and acquires a definite Shakespearean flavor: C'è del marcio in Vernon Street / "There's something rotten in Vernon Street".

Fred, I like the Asimov nomination, sneaking into crime through the door of science fiction. Very nice. And one should not forget that Donald Westlake wrote a collection of stories called Tomorrow's Crimes, though it's not considered one of his better books. (I haven't read it.)

He did write a few pure mysteries, including 5 or so books of "Tales of the Black Widowers" - collecting short crime stories recounted by the members of the eponymous all-male social club. The three novels I mentioned before were written in response to the claim that mystery and sf were incompatible genres, and are classical whodunits which make use of the Sf elements provided by the setting (p.e. the Three Laws of Robotics) in order to create a puzzle which must then be resolved purely through logic deduction.

I'll put those books on my mental list. Perhaps I'll try the sci-fi mysteries first, to see how Asimov combined the two genres, and then the "Black Widowers" stories. The John Buchan stories tend to be recounted by members of a gathering. That narrative convention is yet another that Asimov took up.

Edmund Crispin's The Glimpses of the Moon, his last novel, published a quarter of a century after the penultimate, and close to posthumous. Edith Wharton too raided Hamlet -- Act 1, Scene 4,51-54 -- for this title. Those few lines aren't easy to construe. Crispin's use of the phrase makes sense to me, Wharton's not so much.

As usual, i cannot come up with anything appropriate. All that comes to mind right now is Tintin's DESTINATION MOON and EXPLORERS ON THE MOON which involve a bit of skullduggery and crim and crime-solving (and a literally 'breath-taking' climax) on the moon.

Seana, my comment referred strictly to the opening chapter of one of Crispin's books. You may recognize it from my description; the title slips my mind. I don't think it was The Moving Toyshop.

The chapter's conceit is that it describes train's slow arrival at a station, the pace of the description slowing and the detail consequently increasing along with the slowing of the train. It was a virtuoso piece of writing, a real tour de force, but after a while I felt that I got the point. I wanted Crispin to get on with it.

It's quite possible that I would not feel the same way now about him, as it's been a long time since I've read them. But I do really like the dry humor of a certain set of British mystery writers, Cyril Hare and Michael Innes being the others. You can sense the erudition under the light surface, and I like the idea that all these guys had other more serious daylight lives, but still found the time topen these very charming mysteries.

Crispin had at least two other lives, didn't he, as a don and as a musician. Cyril Hare and Michael Innes have both been recommended to me and are in my mental to-read pile. I have a feeling Crispin was young when he wrote the book I mentioned and given to a bit of showing off.

I'm willing to give Crispin another chance because that chapter really was a marvelously imaginative piece of writing. I also very much enjoyed a book of stories by Michael Gilbert relatively recently. I'm not sure where he fits in that group.

I picked up a Michael Gilbert myself recently, based on Martin Edward's recommendation on some post of his. I think they might fall into the category in some ways, but I don't think they are quite as comic. Could be wrong.

One of JD Robb's novellas starring Eve Dallas takes place off-planet. It's called Interlude in Death. She's at a police conference to make a speech, but somebody's murdered and she takes the lead in trying to find out whodunnit.

Yes, Asimov would be a smooth way into SF, especially his SF mysteries.

Eventually, when you reach the point of reading an SF novel that's not a mystery, then I would recommend, as I always do, a novel by Ursula LeGuin--_The Left Hand of Darkness_. For me, it's THE example of what SF can be and so seldom is.

I haven't read Westlake's _Tomorrow's Crimes_, but I'm not surprised that it may not be his best. The problem is crossing genres, which is not easy. PD James is one of my favorite authors, but her SF novel, _Tomorrow's Children_, or something like that, is not very interesting. The movie is better.

However, her novel is nowhere near being the disaster that an SF novel by Caleb Carr, author of a very good historical mystery, _The Alienist_. He has a second one, whose title escapes me--some about an Angel--which isn't bad either.

I've just recently discovered that several SF writers also have written mysteries, Anthony Boucher for one, and I'm curious to see if they did any better crossing genre lines.

Ray Bradbury also penned one of the Ellery Queen novels, and that's another one I need to read. That reminds me, Bradbury has written a mystery trilogy which isn't bad at all.

Fred, I have some pretty astute guides to science fiction here in the blogosphere. Adrian McKinty has been talking up Phillip K. Dick, acknowledging his weakness as a prose stylist but lauding his originality as a thinker and the crime-fiction aspects of his books.

I saw and liked the movie Children of Men, which is certainly speculative fiction and could probably be called science fiction as well, though I don't know how sci-fi readers regard it. I haven't read the novel.

Anthony Boucher must have done well writing mysteries or at least wiritng about them. The world's biggest crime-fiction convention, Bouchercon, is named for him. I'll attend my second one in October.

The Caves of Steel, Naked Sun etc. eventually tie up with the Foundation Series don't they? In the 4 or 5th Foundation book (I cant remember which) it all comes together. I dont remember those books being particularly good though. And there were a lot of crazy predictions that only a man working on six novels at a time and living in Manhattan could have made. (level escalators have replaced sidewalks in one of them). But still, as Marco says, it was a noble attempt.

Incidentally in one of his short story collections he writes a preface talking about how brilliant his mysteries were and how crazy Playboy magazine was to stop publishing them. The proof was the rejected mystery stories in the collection which werent that great.

If this sounds like I'm ragging on Isaac, I'm not, I was merely shooting the breeze.

When you write 400 novels like Asimov not all of them can be brilliant, but when I was reading them nearly 30 years or so ago, I do remember being impressed at how everything tied together in two separate series.

Reminds me of an interview in which Fred Vargas rebutted the notion that series novels, so frequent in genre fiction, are somehow less serious. A series, she said, is akin to an epic that traces a hero throughout his life.

In the future, a strange cult arises within the moon colony, in which all the members undergo surgery so as to look identical. Trouble strikes when one of them turns to murder, in full view of cameras. Despite reams of evidence they don't know who did it, because everyone is the same.

I liked the 2-3 Gervase Fens I've read. I would have thought them up your alley, Peter.

Oh--Margery Allingham would be the female counterpart, I think.

Dorothy Sayers and Josephine Tey among the women and Cecil Day Lewis writing as Nicholas Blake also come to mind.I hate Margery Allingham.

That reminds me, Bradbury has written a mystery trilogy which isn't bad at all.

I've heard that the protagonist is named Crumley in homage to the writer.

I dont remember those books being particularly good though. And there were a lot of crazy predictions...(level escalators have replaced sidewalks in one of them).

It probably has to do with the fact that people lived under the earth because the surface was inhabitable (hence the "caves of steel"). I don't think they should be read for the predictions. I too did read them many years ago (24-25, so probably we read them at the same age) and enjoyed them, though they are probably nothing special.They are interesting because the sf setting is employed to create new forms of classic tropes, like the closed room mystery.

I've just recently discovered that several SF writers also have written mysteries, Anthony Boucher for one, and I'm curious to see if they did any better crossing genre lines.

Many of them have the odd mystery in their 100+ bibliography - they were writing for a living and tried various things.Fredric Brown is well respected in both fields.Nowadays, after cyberpunk, there is a whole subgenre of sci-fi/thrillers or sci-fi/noirs.This recent novel seems to have generated some buzz.

Eventually, when you reach the point of reading an SF novel that's not a mystery, then I would recommend, as I always do, a novel by Ursula LeGuin--_The Left Hand of Darkness_. For me, it's THE example of what SF can be and so seldom is.

You can't go wrong with Ursula LeGuin, though I would favor The Dispossessed.

The protagonist of the Bradbury trilogy is a young, and as far as I can remember, unnamed SF writer who ends up in Hollywood doing screen plays, much as Bradbury himself did for awhile. He stumbles into various murders or crimes, a typical talented amateur. In the first novel, the writer meets a police officer whose name is Elmo Crumley who becomes a recurring figure in the three novels, if I remember correctly. I don't recognize the reference to Crumley the writer though.

I just finished reading China Mieville's _The City and The City_ and did a brief commentary about him on my blog. I thought it was a good police procedural.

I've heard that Fred Brown wrote mysteries in addition to his SF, but I haven't had a chance to read any of them yet.

I think most critics would agree with you that _The Dispossessed_ is a better novel. However, there's no accounting for personal taste.

Death is a Lonely Business was the first of those Bradbury mysteries. I really liked it, particularly since it was very evocative of Venice, California, where I spent a few of my earliest childhood years, and this was definitely in the days before it was a trendy address. There's a great nostalgic Southern California feel to the whole thing. I don't know why I didn't get on to the others.

I'm surprised you hate Allingham, Marco. I can see hating the early ones, where Campion is such a fop, but they changed considerably as they went along, particularly after World War II. Tiger in the Smoke is a personal favorite.

Marco, I regard the name "Gervase Fen" with strange fascination, beguiled by its euphony but fearful that the stories may be arch yukfests.

Bradbury's naming his hero for James Crumley is interesting. I wonder if Bradbury continued writing mysteries even after he achieved the kind of success in science fiction that presumable would have freed him from the necessity of writing across all the popular genres in order to make a living.

And I'd forgot about Fredric Brown, some of whose crime fiction I've enjoyed highly. Come to think of it, one of his Ed and Am Hunter novels involves bogus transmissions from outer space, so could qualify under the question I ask here.

Yes, Gary, I'll be in Indianapolis, staying at a bed and breakfast a few blocks from the convention hotel. So I'm umlikely to be a prime suspect if there's a murder in the night at this mystery convention.

Fred, Fredric Brown's "The Fabulous Clipjoint" is especially worth reading among his crime fiction, justly regarded as a classic of American crime writing. And thanks for the recommendations. I have heard good things about China Mieville.

Seana, that Bradbury title could make one apprehensive that the book is one more jokey parody of hard-boiled crime fiction. But I get the feeling that's not what Bradbury was up to.

Seana, I think I wrote that I owned a collection of Gilbert's stories. In fact, I looked for the collection after reading the story from which I quoted in an anthology. Not finding it, I bought onr of Gilbert's novels instead.

Bradbury published _Death is A Lonely Business_ in 1985 and _A Graveyard of Lunatics_ in 1990, long after he became a successful writer, with his own cable TV show. I don't think he wrote the mysteries because he had to.

Thanks, Fred. I got the feeling from the tenor of the comments here that Bradbury was respectful of the crime genre in his own crime fiction. I'm being pushed very close to looking for his crime novels.

His nostalgia, as well as being a personal expression, may well be part of the evolving definitions of hard-boiled and noir.

Bradbury actually hails from my dad's neck of the woods,Waukegan, Illinois, though he would have been the peer of some of my father's older siblings. Although my father's small town was called Gurnee, they all ended next door in Waukegan for high school. Ray would have been there too, except that his family picked up stakes and moved to California when he was thirteen. Anyway, his books like Dandelion Wine and other non-fantasy stuff are right out of that place and era, which is nice for me.

When I looked up the Wikipedia entry just to double check my own memory, I came across this interesting anecdote.

He attributes his lifelong habit of writing every day to an incident in 1932 when a carnival entertainer, Mr. Electrico,touched him with an electrified sword, made his hair stand on end, and shouted, "Live forever!"

I'm a fan too, of course. She came and taught at UCSC for a quarter, though I wasn't in town at that point. But I had the great good fortune to see her at an all day panel which featured Peter Beagle, Octavia Butler, Walter Tevis and LeGuin. It's incredible to think back now that, though I was excited about it at the time, I had no idea how cool that really was. And I've mentioned somewhere before how after the conference I transferred buses in San Jose to come back to Santa Cruz, and there was Octavia Butler standing in the line next to me, waiting for the bus to L.A. And no one even knew who she was. I was of course too shy in those days to say a word. I still am, but I'd probably overcome it to at least acknowledge her.

Cool past, too. She is the daughter of a famous California anthropologist, Alfred Kroeber, and his perhaps equally famous wife, Theodora Kroeber, who wrote the book Ishi:Last of His Tribe, about the last remaining member of the Calfornian Yahi tribe, who the Kroebers knew personally. It's not surprising that many of Le Guin's books take a distinctly anthropological slant.

Alfred Kroeber: In 1901 Le Guin's father earned the first Ph.D. in anthropology in the United States from Columbia University and went on to found the second department, at the University of California at Berkeley.

Theodora Kroeber: Best known book is about Ishi, the last member of the Yana tribe in California. The book, Ishi in Two Worlds,was published in 1961 after Alfred Kroeber's death.

It's been awhile since I've read _Something Wicked This Way Comes_, which features one of those traveling circuses, but I vaguely remember that one of the exhibits may have had something to do with an electric chair. Hmmmmm

I'd say that hmm is warranted. I could read the Mr. Electro anecdote, then read the novel and speculate about the transformations through which Bradbury put the childhood incident to get it into fictional form.

Le Guin is a master and the last of the Big sci fi authors left alive. I'd rec:

The Left Hand of Darkness

The Dispossessed

The Lathe of Heaven

Adrian, you scare me when you agree 100% with me.Don't do it often.

But I had the great good fortune to see her at an all day panel which featured Peter Beagle, Octavia Butler, Walter Tevis and LeGuin. It's incredible to think back now that, though I was excited about it at the time, I had no idea how cool that really was.

Very cool. Octavia Butler was another great author, sadly she died a couple of years ago still in her fifties.

Ursula K. Le Guin has degrees in French and Italian literature, translated a couple of works from Spanish and since she wasn't satisfied with current English versions of the Tao Te Ching, she wrote her own.

Brian, I also found out today that Leigh Brackett wrote science fiction in the 1950s. Jeffrey Ford, who won an Edgar a few years ago, writes fantasy and science fiction.

And here's where you might be especially able to help: Have science fiction and crime maintained their close relations to a greater extent in comics than in fiction? Perhaps I ask because I was reading Top Ten last night.

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This blog is a proud winner of the 2009 Spinetingler Award for special services to the industry and its blogkeeper a proud former guest on Wisconsin Public Radio's Here on Earth. In civilian life I'm a copy editor in Philadelphia. When not reading crime fiction, I like to read history. When doing neither, I like to travel. When doing none of the above, I like listening to music or playing it, the latter rarely and badly.
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